New archway in place at Manila Cemetery

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

By REVIS BLAYLOCK

The Manila Cemetery archway was put in place on Wednesday. Helping with the design, building and installation are, from left: Tammy Walker; Don Skaggs, city employee; Linda Donovan, designer; Scott Brady with Walker Welding; Henry Ford, city utility supervisor; M.H. Walker, owner of Walker welding; and Michael Skaggs, city employee.

The first of two archways, one for the entrance and one for the exit, at the Manila Cemetery was completed and put in place on Wednesday, Aug. 16.

Linda Donovan expressed her appreciation to the cemetery board and others for getting the job done.

Donovan designed the black archway with white lettering. It is visible from the street.

It was made taller and wider than the previous archway to accommodate a fire truck or funeral vehicles. City workers helped install the archway.

“The cemetery committee approved the design and gave us the go ahead,” Donovan said. “Dan Gamble serves as president of the committee. When the older arch was damaged, we received a few donations to have it repaired. It was repaired and was soon damaged again. We knew we needed to make it higher and wider.”

Scott Brady with M.H. Walker Welding did most of the construction on the beautiful archway.

The archway was powder coated by Brian Neel at Killer Paint in Manila.

“They did a great job and we will not have to worry about painting it,” Donovan said.

Work will begin on the second (exit) archway and hopefully be up in the near future.